BOSTON – Cybersecurity experts are planning to hold a forum on ways the United States and Canada can toughen their online defences.

The discussion will focus on the growing number of lone wolf and foreign government-sponsored cyber-attacks that harm national security and commerce in both countries.

Thursday’s event is sponsored by The New England-Canada Business Council and will include a discussion of strategies needed to stem the tide of cyber-attacks — particularly those by crime syndicates, rogue nations, terrorist groups and individual hackers.

Organizers of the forum say the attacks disrupt the free exchange of information on the Internet and undermine business transactions.

One of the biggest cyber thefts on record was by an Eastern European crime organization that investigators say raked in $300 million from stolen credit card numbers.